(I)
In the beginning there is an act of appreciation, the world before us is unknown.
A taxi from the airport along muddy streets, the morning hot and humid, the roadsides overflowing with green. Beneath the branches, people make their way into the day, days which might hold anything, most of which however will be more or less normal. For me to catch a glimpse of them is a pleasure, accentuated in that these things are foreign and strange, but the spectacle need not be exotic, for something similar can be enjoyed at home, people watching in the city. The value is contained within the other, alterity, but too within the self, freshness of being.
Tourism anyway is an easy relationship with the outside world. The self on holiday; the other of visual interest, cultural distinction, rare beauty, set apart by language.
I spent a month in Brazil in 2008. The term BRIC countries had long since been coined and I suppose I was aware of it, but - 24 years old - in my youth light for lack of worrying for the future, and of the growth of emerging markets. As you can imagine I was typically pleased by the experience. There was jungle and tropical fruit; beaches and bronzed women in bikinis; too much cachaca. I did notice the size of it. Brazil is enormous I thought. Sao Paulo is enormous. Rio, enormous.
A year later a city break in Moscow - a long weekend towards the beginning of spring. I had now begun my work as a strategic consultant and so was well-acquainted with the concept - these four countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, and their future contribution to global economic output. I saw the Red Square; I made my way to one of the Seven Sisters; I went to Tolstoy's house. I particularly enjoyed Izmailovsky Market for the crowds of sellers and shoppers. I bought some communist memorabilia, posters, one advising against careless talk in public, and another against getting overly drunk. Anyway, the Moscow I saw for the most part was very smart, and very well-off for the recent decades of private enterprise.
In 2010 I saw the skyscrapers of Pudong and was suitably impressed. Shanghai is the largest city in the world and this I had a sense of in moving from one place to another. Out in the streets, it feels free, vibrant, for such a bustle. I was very happy for the moments of peace to be found in the cafes and teashops of the French concession. Too I saw Sanya and slept on the beach by the South China Sea after a night downing beers, I less quickly than my Chinese challengers.
India, a holiday in Kerala in 2011, and I knew of the growth for the fun of driving upstate and the busy drama of the roads, but I liked most floating along on the backwaters.
In any case, the paradigm was then exciting, and the opportunity essential. Overall, it was considered as one of the most important points for a positive future, in politics, in business, to have good relationships with these countries.
To continue with the example of tourism, in the mid-2000s China spent 20 billion dollars on international tourism compared to that of 70-80 for the then highest spenders, Germany and the US; towards the end of the last decade this figure had grown to over 250. 1
The basic points are obvious: we in the West benefit from growth elsewhere; the higher the share of this growth the better; more rather than less.
Recently there has been a concerted effort to deteriorate these relationships, and to change the paradigm, at great cost to all of us.
Here there is failure, and this failure stems from problems of perception, not from economics or geo-politics. We suffer for that we have prioritised a poor position, self to other, within a deliberately defective competitive theory.
(II)
First we should consider ourselves, for it is the human that does, not the company or the country.
Who am I? Who are they?
It can be quite inspiring to do it well.
Perhaps as an opening statement:
I am a global citizen of the United Nations and I want to do my best for humanity.
How great might be the benefit, and how wonderful the world, if we all thought like this.
I am an explorer of distant lands and I would love to try something of your cuisine.
I've read War and Peace I think three times, but I was surprised by his early novels, to see the young man that became his great works. What did you think?
I am an optimist, a humanist, a proponent of education, a believer in progress through patience and hard work; the potential for us is almost endless.
I do not think, that man is my competitor, and I must beat him.
I would argue that we should never consider ourselves as in competition with another person. It might be that there is only one job for several contenders, but it is by definition better for the position of the self to aspire towards values, qualities and standards.
To be one's best…
Or just to relax, to be oneself…
Rather than to worry about how to exceed the capabilities of the other, or your perception of them. Here is failure. It is a failure, rather than to be success, to be a competitor. One is better in being less competitive.
(III)
There are some situations in which we should spend some time and resources in considering competition, for example in business. Here we might make a segmentation according to the fundamental difference of how we wish the other to fare.
In the first situation, according to classical competitive theory, the model of self-interest, we do our best to come first, but accept the presence of competition as a positive. We can learn from them, improve upon their offer, and then they upon us in turn. More broadly, if the economics do not make sense for us to cover all geographies, local players abroad can develop a similar proposition and provide to their populations the same benefits, bringing growth to other countries. One day they might visit us, smiling, and talking of their homeland.
In the second, we consider competition a negative, and take action against it, thus spending our resources on trying to remove it from the field, thinking that we might eventually take more, but diminishing our own output in the (perpetual) short term, with a lower investment in growth, and with negative effects for the market, customers staying away from the bad product that results in being hostility. Here there is failure.
(IV)
Here then is the problem. There are some who believe that success of self is failure of the other. If this position is extended, it is easy to see that success becomes failure, but clearly this cannot be. Success, whatever it is, is not failure. Here I wonder whether even Socrates would be satisfied.
The extent of failure in society, domestically and internationally, is now significant, and the cause of this is extreme selfishness. The worst of people seek to maximise gain for the self, defining all alterity as either competitor or resource, seeking then to undermine the former and to exploit the latter.
The reason for the extent of this problem is I suppose to do with poor behaviour in computer sciences, where numeric interpretation of events may ignore the cost of human suffering as a negative. You must consider the nature of failure to see why it would be successful in some algorithms. It can be quick, it can be powerful.
Here then is the main problem with the world in which we live today, great cost for the many and gain for a few won through suffering, and yet this model of competition, and the technologies that support it, are not eligible for debate. They are beyond public truth, but they are the main source of detriment to public life.
Thus, when it comes to working on the serious issues of our times, we are likely to make mistakes in our calculations. Taking the example of climate change, we need first to consider the segmentation of productive activity versus counter-productive. We should focus on reducing the resources invested in counter-productive activity, investments in failure, before increasing the cost of the productive.
In this world of failure, you can see why the balance of power between East and West would be a winning concept. The more competition, the more failure.
(V)
If on the morrow you are vexed by someone else, whether in person or through media, and feel provoked, say equanimity is my middle name. Do not enter into competition with this other person.
If asked, what of China? Are you on side with us or with them? Say China is a country, and the Chinese are many. I do not have relationships with countries, but with people, and in general I wish others well.
UNWTO